Anti-gun rhetoric has been a fact of my life as long as I can remember. As a new mom, I even tried keeping toy guns out of the house, because I had bought into some of the myths surrounding gun ownership, such as:

1) Accidental gun deaths are bound to happen with a gun in the house.

2) A gun-free home will keep kids safe from guns.

3) If kids play with toy guns, they will grow up to be violent.

All of those are nonsense, of course, but as a mom, all I wanted was for my children to be safe. My husband wasnt exactly on board, and I knew that. As a lifetime member of the NRA, he has always been vocal in his support of the Second Amendment and our right to own firearms, if we choose.

I suppose I could continue to tiptoe around the issue of firearms, but I am convinced that every survival minded family must own at least one gun, train their children in gun safety as well as in shooting skills, and that a firearm should be part of their preparedness plan.

Its shocking to read comments from non-preppers and a few preppers, alike, that part of their survival plan is to take by force the food and supplies they need from people who have prepared. If you are putting time, effort, and money into supplies that will help your family survive future crises, then you absolutely must include firearms as a layer in personal and home safety.

Which should you choose? My #1 choice for overall home protection is the shotgun. Either a 12-gauge or the slightly smaller 20-gauge are excellent choices. Although practice with this firearm is vital, shot placement isnt as critical as with handguns. Ill be posting an article on my blog this week listing the reasons I believe the shotgun is the Queen of Home Defense.

What about handguns? Theyre an excellent choice as well. Their main advantage is that they can be concealed, not providing any hint that you are lethally armed unless or until it becomes absolutely necessary. In a shootout, law enforcement officers miss their target some 70% of the time, and theyve had plenty of training and practice. Firing and missing when its your family under attack isnt a pleasant thought, so ongoing training and practice is absolutely necessary.

One more myth I would like to debunk is that of, The Bad Guy. Its a fact that bad guys have buddies. One critical reason to own a firearm is that a single person has very little chance of survival when faced with multiple bad guys, intent on harm, and very possibly armed themselves.

Theres no reason to put your life and those of your loved ones in harms way because you want to be politically correct. Being smart beats politically correct every time.

Lisa runs a great blog for preppers and you can find it right here! ~Mike P. Guns & Gear Editor

I cannot say I believe every house hold should own guns however I do believe there should be 3 minimal requirements to own guns 1st gun saftey training for every one in the house hold 2nd, required to be a member of the NRA and 3rd be registerd voter of an anti- democrat or liberalist party. (IMO the only diffrence between liberals, democrats and comunist is the spelling.) And any household meeting these minimal requirements should have many guns. And lots of ammo

Contemplating upgrades in a post SHTF world isn’t necessarily planning to steal. Every player of a first person shooter knows the drill: loot the bodies, take all the ammo, keep the best guns. Once you’ve killed a bad guy the supplies are just sitting there, no stealing necessary.

There was a nuance I was responding to. It’s one thing to take reasonable advantage of the outcome of a bad situation; it’s another to plan “I’m not going to get what I need by peaceful means now because I’ll just take it, by any means necessary, from someone else later.”

And it’s understanding reality to say “for a long term issue it’s not possible for me to have all the necessary supplies, but it is possible for me to have the supplies necessary to KEEP supplied.” He never said anything about stealing, that was you, he said that some of what anybody would REALLY need most folks actually CAN’T legally get currently but you can get the stuff to be able to upgrade to the off limits stuff later. That COULD include stealing, but it doesn’t have to.

If you are willing to consider .308 instead of .30-06 the Springfield M1A is probabaly the best "cross-over" battle rifle/deer rifle. They make several versions that are not EBR. A friend of mine has a National Match M1A with a fancy walnut stock and fluted SS barrel (I believe a Krieger); it is sweeeeet.

I also secretly like the AR-10...it's a lot cheaper than the M1A and chucks .308 just fine...but don't tell anyone. I'd lose friends. ;-)

There were definitely teething pains with the M1A. Springfield has largely overcome them and the new rifles seem solid. I agree about the price. It's why I don't have one. :-( You might want to re-visit the ballistic data on 30-06 vs 308. There's very little difference in the performance of mil-spec loads. The advantage of 30-06 is that it can accomodate a longer, heavier bullet, which is useful if you want to hunt large game. Otherwise there isn't much difference.

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